55: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon

Anthon recommended this ages ago, and I finally found it in a used bookstore. It's fantastic!

And that's pretty much the end of 2009.

54: The Autobiography of Pops Foster New Orleans Jazzman, as told to Tom Stoddard

Excellent.

It starts off a little slow, but picks up nicely. Many interesting observations on New Orleans jazz.

There are some interesting linguistic bits, like this explanation of the idiom "every tub" (page 14):

The food was mostly every tub; that means everybody takes what he wants and waits on himself.

Or this mention of "cracker" (used for a very light African-American, not a caucasian) in the 1920's (page 90):

Tom Turpin was a cracker—that's what we called a very light-colored person back then.

On page 94, this amusing idiom while talking about kazoo mutes that Oliver had invented and used:

Those babies sold like a house on fire all over the country, and Joe didn't get nothing for it.

And sometime between 1917 and 1919 (on page 119):

Captain Johnny Streckfus came up with a name for us—the Jazz Syncopators. That's the first time I heard the name jazz.

Apart from all the linguistic fun, there's, unsurprisingly, musical fun.

Several times, Foster mentions how black New Orleans bands used to play softly, in contrast to white bands and modern bands. On page 63:

The guys called Dixieland players today think the louder you play, the better you are. Most of them are just loud. Back in the early days we used to play soft and hot. Most of the time it was so quiet you could hear the people's feet shufflin' on the floor.

On page 90:

When the white boys started playing [jazz] they thought it had to be played fast and loud. Joe Oliver and Manuel Perez used to play together with the Magnolia Band in a little small room and didn't blast anybody out. Nowadays you've got to stand back from the band or get your ears blown out.

And on page 166, on Luis Russell's band in New York at the Roseland Ballroom in 1929:

The rhythm was playing great together, and the trumpet players were screaming soft so you could hear the people's feet scraping on the floor. You could stand right in front of the band and they weren't blasting you out.

On soli (page 91):

In the early days, when you had a solo, the other instruments were always doing something behind the solo. None of the guys took their horns down for a chorus to let another guy play a solo. When the band knocked off, the whole band romped on a tune from your left hand to your right corner. The music was written so you couldn't take down your horn. You could take your horn down to dry your lip, but you took it right up again. If any of the instruments would quite playing, the manager or whoever hired you would come right over and say, "What's the matter with that guy, is he tired?" or, "Your lip sore, man?" In those days we all sat on stools or chairs so we didn't get so tired of standing like you do today. About 1920 or '21 guys started taking down their horns after they'd blown a chorus. Now the rhythm guys are the only ones who work hard. They play all the way through, and the bass player stands up all the time.

And on the earliest snare drums in New Orleans (page 91):

The first snare drum I saw in the bands were the bodies of five string banjos. The guys would cut the neck of a banjo, lay it down on a chair, and beat it. They didn't have no stands.

On tuning (page 92):

When I start playing a number I don't tune up before a number, I wait till the number gets started then I play while I tune when I need.

On page 75 Foster explicitly mentions that he played the string bass in funeral parades. I am having trouble picturing how this would work. Did he carry it to a spot, play while standing still, pick it up again, etc.? Surely he couldn't play it while walking, could he? And this, to me startling, bit:

I think the Black and Tan Band made some records around L.A. before Ory did, and I think Curtis Mosby played drums on the records.

I can't find any mention of these presumed recordings online. Oh, grief.

53: Beat the Dealer, Edward O. Thorp

Blackjack is still boring as all hell to me, and I skimmed the sections giving actual algorithms for play, but I enjoyed the anecdotes, slim as they were. Not worth re-reading unless I plan to take up blackjack or write a simulator.

52: Amadeus, Peter Shaffer

Interesting after having seen the film so many times.

51: The Mad Science Book: 100 Amazing Experiments from the History of Science, Reto U. Schneider

A hella fun collection of Annals of Improbable Research worthy science, with some more common fare tossed in. Lots of sociology and psychology. Some icky medicine.

Stanley Milgram comes up three times, with the shocks, Small World, and the lost envelopes. He did some very interesting things. I'd like to read a good biography. (If someone is actually reading this, and that someone knows of one: leave a comment.)

Two of my favourite papers as examples:

Barbara Rolls' "Water Incorporated into a Food but not Served with a Food Decreases Energy Intake in Lean Women", American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 70, pp. 448-455: in short, soup is more filling than its non-water-ingredients + water. Bizarre.

Benjamin Libet's "Time of Conscious Intention to Act in Relation to Onset of Cerebral Activity (Readiness-Potential). The Unconscious Initiation of a Freely Voluntary Act", Brain 106 (Pt 3), pp. 623-642: the brain seems to start initiating movements before we have consciously decided to make those movements. Free will is such a sham.

50: Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence

I tried reading this around sixth or seventh grade and it bored me out of my mind. It's better going now. (Aside: the film Lawrence of Arabia, loosely based on the book, similarly grew in my estimation.)

The parts describing raids or Arab customs are very interesting. The bits about Lawrence's feelings of guilt and his emotions are boring. The politics sections fall somewhere in between. The occasional dry humour comes as a surprise every time.

A nice thought from Book X giving a partial reason for my disgust of soldiers:

Convicts had violence put upon them. Slaves might be free, if they could, in intention. But the soldier assigned his owner the twenty-four hours' use of his body; and sole conduct of his mind and passions. A convict had license to hate the rule which confined him, and all humanity outside, if he were greedy in hate: but the sulking soldier was a bad soldier; indeed, no soldier. His affections must be hired pieces on the chess-board of the king.

In terms of lay-out, the 1936 Doubleday edition I picked up at Cal's Books in Redding is brilliant. The paper is nice, the font readable, and the header of each page contains a few word summary of that page and the date in the war covered, not the common and useless author and title of the whole work.

49: Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, Douglas Coupland

Finally. I've been putting this one off, because I was afraid it would be disappointing. It's not.

It doesn't hold my interest like Microserfs, but I recognise a lot of myself in the margin notes. Spooky.

48: Embroideries and Chicken with Plums, Marjane Satrapi

Yes, again I count two graphical novels as one book.

I found Persepolis more interesting.